A special tribunal in The Hague investigating allegations of atrocities committed by Kosovo pro-independence fighters opened its first case on Wednesday, against a commander accused of torturing prisoners during the 1998-1999 conflict with Serbia.
At the start of his trial, Salih Mustafa, 50, pleaded not guilty to charges of war crimes, comparing the court to the Nazi secret police.
"I am not guilty of any of the counts brought here before me by this Gestapo office," Mustafa told judges.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a Kosovo court seated in the Netherlands and staffed by international judges and lawyers, was set up in 2015 to handle cases under Kosovo law against fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). It is separate from a U.N. tribunal, which was also located in The Hague and tried Serbian officials for crimes committed in the same conflict.
The Kosovo tribunal's highest-profile suspect is former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who turned himself in last year to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In the court's first case, Mustafa faces charges of murder, accused of running a prison unit where inmates where subjected to daily beatings and torture. Prosecutors explained that in Mustafa's case his victims were also Kosovo Albanians.
Mustafa's indictment says he personally took part in some of the beatings and torture of at least six prisoners and was present when an inmate was so badly hurt that he later died.